


Kidsmet

by SinisterScribe



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Again, Automobiles, Babies!, Blame Addicted1, Emma takes being a bestie seriously, F/M, Grilled Cheese, Gun Fight, Henry with aplomb, Long, Robin sufferrrsssssssss, Tails, even more ridiculous crack, fire fight, goldenqueen all the way, implied DragonQueen, impliedWolf...Egg?, knife, like seriously, long fic is long, ridiculous fluff, rude or eccentric Im not sure which, scales - Freeform, so does Zelena, swearing in dragon, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 06:09:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3925753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinisterScribe/pseuds/SinisterScribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Plot Twist!</p><p>This was written before the season finale...not that I care about canon because everything after 3A has just been an acid fierce bad trip horrible fanfiction as far as I'm concerned. </p><p>ANYWAY endings are happy, Emma is bored, SOMEBODY needs to make Zelena suffer and because fuck Outlaw Queen, that's why. </p><p>This is the crackiest thing ever to crack. </p><p>You're welcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kidsmet

**Kidsmet**

 

 

Emma sat outside the diner and lay in wait.

She was the patient sort. Part of the job and their routine was fairly predictable in certain respects. Not that either of the pair that redefined ‘power couple’ could really be described as predictable in any way, shape or form.

Still…she was the patient sort.

Emma toyed with her phone and smirked when she thought about the Plot Twist (as she had come to call it) that had resulted in Happy Endings all round.

Lilith had been stripped of her double helping of Darkness and Emma had been dosed with half of it. Her parents had lost their shit, of course, and watched her fearfully for signs of going off the rails a la Hannibal Lecter, but she didn’t feel different at all.

Well, aside from an increased incidence of _plotting_ but she assured herself that it was simply mischief at worst. Well, maybe pestering.

Okay, so there was a distinct flavour of vindictive glee that floated around her head at the prospect of her plans coming to fruition but she was fairly certain that was entirely normal considering the situation.

The scales must be balanced after all.

Still, none of that had really compared to the idea of Regina and Rumplestiltskin’s happy ending.

Namely that…it had been them getting…together.

Emma still felt like scrunching her face up in confusion every time at the mere thought but the two (mostly) ex-villains did seem to be genuinely…happy together.

The Plot Twist had been both incredibly subtle and altogether world shattering at the same time. Everyone had felt the _shift_ in their lives. Nothing had really changed and yet everything had. The world had slanted a different way and suddenly the stacks were even and everybody was getting a fair shake. It wasn’t like the Author had taken away everyone’s free will again, rather he had just redressed the horrors he had inflicted on them all in the name of a better story.

With that shift, with that change, she guessed they had just realised that they were the only constant in one another’s lives. They might have made a career out of outmanoeuvring one another, backstabbing, gleeful and malicious machinations to fuck one another over again and again and…ad nauseum.

It had been six weeks since the whole Robin-is-a-Grade-A-Moron debacle in New York, when he had decided to stay with Zelena and their spawn and –props to her- Regina had left him in the dust despite of what he represented to her and she’d gone off and found her own happy ending fuck you very much.

Emma smiled, attagirl.

Emma frowned when she thought about the money she had lost on Regina not only finding someone that could _really_ keep up with her and be her equal within the year but that somebody would be Maleficent.

Emma’s superpower often came with the added bonus of reading, hmm, _tensions_ between people. Regina and Maleficent had sexual tension pouring off them in waves…still, Ruby had won and it had been Rumple and Emma was STILL paying off the garage fees of that stupid muscle car that Ruby drove.

Drove being an optimistic term.

Though she was _certain_ she wasn’t going to lose the next bet. Maleficent and Regina might not be a thing _now_ but Emma could and had bet the Yellow Bug on them having been more than something in the past.

Now, if Lily would just come through and produce the evidence, Emma could win the bet and _own_ the stupid muscle car that she was paying for.

Emma quirked a smile when she thought about her new friend in Lily. Without the excess of darkness, the pathological lying had stopped (for the most part, she was a _wicked_ poker player) and she and Emma were slowly adjusting to the connection between them that even now crackled under their skin.

It was weird, to know where Lily was or what she was thinking if Emma but concentrated for a moment (trying to teach Maleficent how to drive, so frustrated) but she didn’t feel that the connection was bad. It was almost…sisterly, she supposed.

So, no, not a bad thing.

“Hello, love.” Hook bent and pressed a kiss to Emma’s temple before setting one of the coffee cups he carried down onto the table. “Still not evil?”

Emma smiled at the joke that had grown between them. They mostly did it to troll her parents but she could feel the undercurrent of genuine query beneath the banter. He wanted to be sure that she really was okay.

“Another day of resisting the urge to steal everyone’s left shoe and cause utter chaos but –no- I remain strong.” Emma’s gaze swept the road even as she turned to face Hook. “How are you?”

“Also still not evil.” He smirked at her and shrugged. “Mostly.”

“Well, I can’t expect you to change for me.” Emma grinned and took a sip of her coffee. She saluted him with the paper cup. “Thank you, by the way.”

“You’ve been out here lying in wait for over an hour, I thought it best to give you a reason to be here before Granny came at you dustpan and brush akimbo.”

“Ah.” Emma chuckled and perked up when her prey entered her sights.

Hook twisted to see what had snagged her attention other than his pretty self and his brows rose when he saw Regina and the Crocodile round the corner of the street deep in conversation.

Regina spoke with her hands, magic sparking from her fingertips and then holding her palm up to gather it into some kind of model made of circles and geometric shapes. Presumably the structure of whatever spell they were cooking up together.

The Crocodile walked at her side, prowling really, his attention half on Regina’s magic and the other half on her legs.

Not that Hook could blame him, if there was one invention that Hook could get behind, it was pencil skirts. He hastily averted his eyes before either of the couple _or_ Emma could notice him noticing.

“That is still odd to me. There was a time when they’d have happily skinned one another and now…this.” Hook turned back to Emma who had that gleefully mischievous look on her face again. “A tad unexpected methinks.”

“Not really.” Emma shrugged and sipped more coffee though she was coiled to pounce as soon as her opportunity presented itself.

“Oh?” Hook cocked his head and took a drink from his own coffee. He approved of mochas also.

“Well, it was the simplest way, wasn’t it?” Emma glanced at him and then turned her attention back to the Maine chapter of the Villain’s Anonymous Support Group. “The Author, to give happy endings all round, could either rewrite history from the very beginnings of the Dark One or he could give him someone that was his equal in the here and now. A typo compared to redrafting the entire novel.”

Hook blinked at her.

“I mean, I’m still not _entirely_ sold on it…maybe I’m just used to things falling apart for Regina but I am totally going to have to shoot Gold if he hurts her.” Emma scowled at the prospect. “And then there’s the whole ‘OMG you’ve gone evil!’ from the parentals and Henry freaking out and Regina giving me that _look_ like I’m stealing her schtick or something…”

Emma grumbled into her coffee cup and Hook smirked.

“So…this is the why behind the practically stalking them?”

“I’m not _stalking._ ” Emma glared at him.

“Of course not. Just watching them.” Hook nodded with wide eyed innocence. “Always.”

“I am lying in wait for my opportunity.”

“What opportunity?”

Emma sat bolt upright and clapped her coffee cup onto the table so harshly she nearly popped the lid clean off.

“This one!” She laughed and spun on her heel, lifting her phone and angling it carefully.

Hook squinted to see that she was not only trying to get herself into the tiny screen but also the Crocodile and his Missus across the street too.

Hook turned in his chair to see what was amiss and he smirked despite himself at the scene.

The undeniably happy couple were facing one another, fingers laced together and both smiling softly in that manner that all new lovers had. That they knew something no one else did and they were perfectly happy to keep that secret to themselves.

Magic sparked between them, Regina tilted her head and the Crocodile took the silent invitation to seal his lips to hers in a kiss that was anything but chaste.

Hook snorted a breath that was half amused and half in feigned disgust and turned away to see Emma. Her he could enjoy much more than the Crocodile’s happiness.

Emma grinned in that manner that always made him think that she was about to bite someone, somehow undeniably equal parts gleeful and vindictive, she saluted the camera with her middle finger and then the small clicking sound that announced a picture being captured sounded.

Emma lowered the phone and tapped the screen so she could see the image she had caught in the tiny device.

“HAH!” She grinned and spun on her heel to flop down onto her chair again, thumbs tapping on her phone and a truly devious smirk on her lips.

“What’s this?” Hook prompted when she seemed content to keep her secrets.

“Hmm?” Emma looked up at him with a studious innocence.

“Pull the other one, love. It’s got bells on.” He drawled and she glared a little.

“Just…fulfilling my duties.” Emma told him primly.

The devious smirk returned as she tapped the screen with a finality that made him think she had sent a message of some kind. A notion reinforced by her stuffing the little boxy thing into her pocket and leaning back to stretch her legs out before her and take a victory swig of her coffee.

“Duties as the Sheriff?”

Emma pursed her lips and her eyes skated away from his. She narrowed them as she turned that over in her head.

“I am exacting justice.” She laced her fingers together over her stomach and _smirked_ again.

Hook narrowed his eyes.

“Hmm.” He drank deeply of his coffee again. “Somehow I don’t think those were the duties to which you referred.”

Emma looked skyward and rocked her head back and forth.

“Meh.” She decided after a moment. “I’m Regina’s bestie. It comes with responsibilities.”

“Bestie?” He frowned.

“Best friend.” Emma picked up her cup and swirled it as she thought how to explain. “Regina and me are bros. She’s all giddy right now because she’s getting it on the regular and her life is something normal shaped. _Somebody’s_ got to make Zelena suffer until Regina gets it back on her To Do list.”

“What if the Queen has moved on?”

Emma cocked her head. She thought it strange and somehow adorable that Hook always referred to Regina as queen. He had referred to Emma as a princess sometimes (usually to irritate her when she was being particularly mulish about something) but never her mom or dad as royalty nor anyone else that had worn a crown back in the motherland.

“I told you, responsibilities.” Emma shrugged and sipped more coffee. “It’s my job to hate Zelena –and Robin- even more than Regina does.”

“Truly?”

“You bet your taut behind.” Emma saluted him with her cup and drank deeply.

Hook grinned and shook his head.  He froze and paled a little when something occurred to him.

“So-o, if things were ever to go…South between us?”

“Oh yeah.” Emma nodded enthusiastically. “She’d keelhaul you and then stake you out for the crows slathered in Granny’s hot sauce. Gold would help.”

“Good to know.” Hook’s voice was a little high pitched.

“Not to worry.” Emma smiled at him and lifted her legs one after the other to prop her heels on his thigh. “Never happen.”

Hook beamed at her at the thought of her finally having a bit of faith in him. In them. It sobered abruptly when the deviousness returned and she bobbed her eyebrows at him.

“I’d get to you first.”

Hook couldn’t help but gulp.

 

**_Meanwhile, in New York…_ **

 

Zelena frowned when that strange buzzing thing went off in her pocket. She’d had it for months now but she still wasn’t used to this world’s technologies and the cell phone –she was fast learning- was becoming a particular pest.

Zelena swiped her thumb over the screen to open the message and groaned when she saw the caller ID of who it was from.

 _Again_.

She should just not look, she told herself. Robin had told her not to. With an insipid addendum that stress wasn’t good for the baby. That she should just ignore the messages.

He did, after all.

Uh-huh, for sure. Of course he did.

She tapped the screen and the message opened. She huffed out an annoyed breath at her own weakness but she just couldn’t NOT. It was a bizarre compulsion that she had to satisfy or she’d become more crazed than she already was.

The image popped up onto the screen and her hand tightened on the phone.

The Saviour was in the foreground, a gleeful grin on her face and her middle finger raised at the phone in a gesture that seemed to be practically punctuation in New York and still as offensive.

Zelena frowned, not as bad as she thought.   

Which made her suspicious.

She focussed on the little banner that ran across the lower half of the picture.

_Oh yeah, their lives are TOTALLY ruined ;D_

Zelena’s frown deepened and then she studied the picture more closely. She squinted at the corner of the photograph and, clumsily using her fingers to enlarge it, ‘zoomed in’ on the couple in the background.

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened when she saw Rumplestiltskin and _Regina_.

With one another.

Regina’s hands on the lapels of his suit coat, his hand in her hair and bending her backwards over the hood of someone’s car. Their lips fused in an obviously passionate kiss that wasn’t feigned in the slightest.

Zelena screamed and hurled her cell phone across the room with enough force to shatter it against the wall and cause the neighbours downstairs to yell inarticulately and hammer on their ceiling with a broom handle.

Zelena let loose a low growl.

This was not at all working out how she had expected it to.

 

**_A Month Later…_ **

 

“Why must I use this?!” Maleficent looked in danger of simply launching the laptop out of the window without even opening it first.

“Because,” Lily clapped her hands down on the computer to prevent that very thing happening, “it’s a useful skill to have in this world.”

Maleficent snorted a plume of smoke to show what she thought of that and Lily waved it away unperturbed.

“Hey, if I’ve got to learn magic, you’ve got to learn how to send an email.” Lily huffed out a breath, her eyes flickering gold as if to prove her point.

“ _You_ have to learn magic so that you don’t burn down the town in a fit of pique. Again.” Maleficent coolly reminded her. “This is pointless. Anything this box can do, my magic can do better and more efficiently without the need of ‘charging’.” She plucked at the cable that fed the little beast the lightning it needed to live.

Lily inhaled a deep breath and closed her eyes as if to summon patience.

Another new skill she was learning.

“What if you want to travel?” Emma flopped down into the booth, her connection to Lily having given her the gist of the conversation even if she hadn’t been present for it. She waved to Ruby for her usual and the waitress kicked her head up in a nod of acknowledgement. “I mean, you’ve been in solitary confinement for the last thirty years and we can come and go from Storybrooke if we want to. Don’t you want to see what this world has to offer?”

“No.” Mal glared.

“I do.” Lily disagreed. “I want to see Europe and I know you won’t let me out of your sight so you’re going to have to come too. Which is _why_ you need to learn how to function as an adult so I don’t have to look after you all the time.”

“You…want me to go with you?” Maleficent looked cautious and Lily suddenly looked nervous.

“Well, I…thought you’d want to?”

“Aww, you guys are so cuuuuuute.” Emma deflated the awkwardness with irritability as was her specialty.

“You were a lot more likeable when you were one hundred per cent Saviour.” Lily scowled.

“I’m adorable.” Emma disagreed and smiled at Ruby when she arrived with her strawberry milkshake. She shifted in her seat so that she could watch the door as well as stay included in the conversation.

“Oh my god, are you still stalking them?” Lily nudged Emma in the knee with her foot. “Give it a rest!”

“Are you kidding?!” Emma snorted at her. “Their entire relationship is like performance art. Besides. Something’s up.”

“What is up?” Maleficent found herself being sucked into whatever drama it was the Saviour was whipping up now but it had been rather…boring as of late.

There were happy endings –and she WAS delighted to have found and get to know her daughter- and then there was stagnation.

Emma, now sharing the burden of darkness with Lily, seemed to be a ready source of entertainment and wasn’t at all bothered about who got caught in the riptide of her shenanigans.

Something she had inherited from her mother no doubt.

“Regina and Gold.” Emma spoke absently, sipping her milkshake and studying the door. She glanced at her watch.

“You’re still tormenting the Witch?” Maleficent had thought Emma had moved onto new things.

“Obvs.” Emma shrugged and Maleficent looked to her daughter.

“Obviously.” Lily supplied.

“But why?”

“I’m bored.” Emma confessed. “It started because I thought _somebody_ ought to and then I realised that Happy Endings are just soooooo…tedious. I gotta get my kicks somewhere.”

“And you think poking the hornets’ nest that is the Love…polyhedron between Regina and her associated entourage is going to get you kicked?” Maleficent nodded. “I would say that is a fair assessment.”

Emma rocked her head around on her neck to give Maleficent a narrow eyed look. She waved at Lily and then Maleficent.

“Explain.”

“Emma’s a dick.” Lily folded her arms on the table and spoke to her mother.

Emma flipped her off without turning around to look or ceasing to slurp on her milkshake.

Maleficent frowned, not entirely sure she was understanding this conversation but it at least gave her a reprieve from the laptop.

“And something IS up.” Emma glanced away from the door to shoot a glare at Lily for doubting her. “Not just because of my alleged dickery.”

“Alright, I’ll bite. What’s doing?” Lily heaved a sigh partially of relief when she realised Tech Lessons were done for the time being. Maybe she should get Henry to do this. Her mom seemed to like the little squirt.

“Regina and Gold are paranoid, right?” Emma turned to look at Lily and then confirm with Maleficent.

The elder dragon nodded.

“So,” Emma swung her body around and clapped her half empty glass down onto the table, “they avoid routines, being predictable, being normal.”

“Decades of practice and neurosis will do that to a body.” Maleficent nodded.

“Exactly. So why is Gold stopping by here every day at the same time to pick up grilled cheese?” Emma cocked her head and smiled.

“You really are a stalker.” Lily thumped back in her seat. “Craaaazy, crazy, stalker.”

“I am not, I just happen to notice patterns.” Emma scowled.

“Certifiable.” Lily disagreed with a grin.

Emma glanced at her watch and then slowly raised her hand. She snapped her fingers and then jerked her thumb to indicate the diner door.

The bell jangled as Gold walked in. He nodded to Mal as he sauntered into the diner like he owned the place (did he technically?) and over to the bar.

Emma cocked her head and raised her eyebrows in a silent demand.

Lily rolled her eyes.

“Fiiiiine, you were right about him being here at a certain time. Doesn’t mean that something weird is going on.”

“He picks up two grilled cheese a triple shot –for him- and a Black Forest Cake shake for Regina. Them’s a lot of calories for a woman who needs to be stitched into her clothes as it is.” Emma held out her hands. “Interested yet?”

“I think I shall settle on ‘morbidly fascinated’.” Maleficent smirked.

“Add to that, Regina hates grilled cheese. Now she’s chowing down on it every day.”

Lily hunched her shoulders, at a loss for what her friend wanted from her.

“It’s hinky is all I’m saying and nobody else is offering any mystery so I might as well jump on it while it’s going.” Emma thumped back into her seat and looked up sharply when a shadow fell over her.

“Ladies.” Gold looked between them with a small smile which was a little less smug than it used to be. Well, smug for a different reason. Being sandwiched between Regina and the nearest flat surface whenever she desired tended to have that effect on a man. “Talking about someone I know?”

“About.” Maleficent clipped her teeth with the word. “Not to.”

“You wound me.” Gold held a hand to his chest.

“Not yet.” Mal smiled sweetly and he chuckled.

Whatever witty repartee they were about to launch into was cut short but the diner door all but exploding off its hinges.

**_“YOU!”_ **

Gold’s eyes went wide and he spun on his heel to see who Regina was yelling at.

He was more than a little alarmed to find her sights firmly fixed on him.

She was across the diner in an instant, magic pluming from her in streamers in waves, her hand fisting around his tie.

“What were you thinking?!” She bellowed and Gold had such a stunned look on his face at suddenly being on the business end of a very angry and perhaps-not-as-former-as-they-had-all-thought Evil Queen that it would have been comical had it not been so dangerous.

“What…?” Gold began but she cut him off.

“No excuses!” She shoved him hard in the chest with both hands and Gold staggered backwards, nearly falling over his own feet.

“I…”

“Don’t try to apologise!” Magic sparked behind her teeth and glowed in her eyes.

Emma’s eyebrows rose and she sipped from her milkshake. This was getting _good._

“Oh-k…”

“This is all your fault!”

“I had gathered.” Gold finally managed to speak but he took it like a man when she thumped him on the arm hard enough that it felt to Emma that a heavy weight had been dropped across the room.

Gold closed his eyes briefly and then opened them wide in a silent exclamation of pain but he didn’t react otherwise.

Then Regina switched to another language, Draconian judging by the smoke trailing from her mouth and nose and the magic sparking behind her teeth, and the yelling _really_ began.

The rest of the diner watched in stunned disbelief as Regina _lost it_.

She was an angry person, obviously, but usually viciously controlled until hearts were being ripped out. Even then there was usually a cool calculation to it but this…this was new.

Volcanic kind of new.

Her arms swung wide and she made _several_ gestures that Emma didn’t need to speak dragon to know were quite offensive and probably anatomically impossible. Judging by the way Maleficent’s eyes had gone wide, her manicured brows raising and the way Lily’s mouth had literally dropped open, Regina’s command of the language was obviously fluent and more than likely would have burned the ears off of the roughest sailors to sail any sea.

Gold stood there, looking a little mystified, but apparently knowing better than to try and argue. It wasn’t until she spat something that gushed blue smoke from between her teeth and sparked pink that he rocked back as if she had sent a right cross over his jaw.

He looked absolutely stunned and Regina threw up her hands, spun on her heel and stormed from the diner, shattering the door clean off its hinges and cracking several windows on her way.

Granny heaved a long suffering sigh and shot Gold a look that made it clear all of that was going on his tab alongside the multitude of grilled cheese sandwiches.

“Did she just…?” Lily pointed after Regina and then looked questioningly at her mother, who still seemed to be in a state of shock. “Did I hear that right?”

“If you heard that she is in the family way and blames dear Rumple for it then…yes.” Maleficent’s eyes were still wide and then she grinned. She looked almost obscenely pleased. “I’m to be an aunt.”

“Say what-now?” Emma spun from watching Gold reboot to original system settings after whatever Regina had said to mentally floor him.

“I shall have to learn how to _knit._ ” Mal grinned and propped her elbows on the table, lacing her fingers together in front of her face.

“Dibs on being the bad influence.” Lily raised her hand. “Citing reasons of having so much practice.”

“Little goldy baby?!” Emma clapped her hands together and grinned at them.

“Seems like.” Mal cocked her head on another smirk and looked slyly at Rumple. “Though I am as of yet unsure how the father is taking this news.”

Rumple stood frozen by their table, his hand resting in the region of his heart and a dumbfounded but hesitantly elated smile on his face.

Emma opened her mouth to say something and then clipped it closed. She rummaged in her pocket and produced her cell phone.

“ _Really?!”_ Lily glared at her.

“Told you. Bored.” Emma gave her a ‘shush’ look and sighted Gold in the lens of her phone camera.

He didn’t even blink when the shutter sounded and only flinched when Emma lifted her foot and kicked him quite hard in the leg.

“Oi!” He snapped out of it and glared at her.

“I would advise running after her and begging forgiveness.” Emma nodded firmly.

“But…”

“Go on. Shoo. Off you trot.” Emma hustled him towards the door with waves of her hands.

Gold looked on the verge of putting Swan in her place but she steamrollered over him.

“I imagine she’s pretty scared under the rage-fest and pretty soon that’s gonna rear its head with all the self-doubt and related ugly. Best not to leave her to deal with that on her own, huh? Not a barrel of laughs, I can tell you that much.”

That seemed to get through to Gold and he bolted for the door, entirely forgetting to limp or even have the decency to act like a mortal man of the middle years that he portrayed.

Emma thought it was very undignified the way he hurdled that pickup truck when it nearly ran him down in the street but she was kind of impressed too.

Still, she turned to her phone and smirked at her latest addition to the Fuck Sisters and Soulmates folder. She whistled idly to herself, added a script to the photo and hit send.

Zelena might have totalled her last phone but Emma had contacts. She had her wiles and her ways. That woman wasn’t ever going to have a phone that Emma couldn’t find or abuse.

Emma hit send and stuffed her phone back into her pocket. She smiled brightly at her table companions.

“Mischief managed.”

She grinned toothily when Mal didn’t get the reference and Lily just groaned.

Emma was going to be _insufferable_ after this.

 

**_New York…_ **

 

Zelena opened the picture message with a kind of morbid curiosity. She had changed numbers, network providers and sim cards. She had an entirely different phone registered under a Post Office Box address and STILL Swan found a way to contact her.

Email was worse.

Email came with skype and video collages set to music and notifications of a daily blog posted by Emma Swan, Facilitator of Happy Endings Both Malevolent and Benign.

Zelena no longer had an email address.

The picture swept across her screen showing Rumple with a look of stupefied happiness on his face.

Dread coiled low in Zelena’s stomach and the banner only confirmed it.

_I shall pass on your congratulations to the proud papa to be. XxX_

Zelena walked quite calmly across the apartment and put her cell phone into microwave. On High.

For six minutes.

Then she dropped the flaming microwave out of the apartment window.

 

**_Back in Storybrooke…_ **

 

“Regina!” Rumple sprinted past his lover, slithering to a halt in front of her and then clasping her by the shoulders. “Stop! Just stop for a minute.”

“Your fault!” She wrested from his hold and tried to pass him but he jinked in front of her.

“Granted.” He held up his hands when she opened her mouth to tear another strip out of him. “BUT…not sorry.”

“You will be.” She snapped and growled when he just jinked in front of her again. “You’re sleeping on the couch. For- _EVER_!”

Rumple snorted.

“You’ll never last.”

Wrong thing to say.

“Wait! Wait, wait, wait!” He caught her arm and spun her around using her own momentum against her. “It takes two.”

Definitely the wrong thing to say.

“You. Were supposed. To take. THE POTION!” She punctuated each sentence with a fist thumping against his chest.

“Ow.” He caught her wrists and held her close.

“I _told_ you to take the potion!”

“I thought you had taken the potion.” He tried to soothe her.

No dice.

“Why would I take it?!”

“Well, since you were the one that could –evidently- end up pregnant…”

“Oh, yes, that makes perfect sense.” She snatched her wrists from his hands so he took her by the elbows. “Because it’s a safer bet to wear a bullet proof vest rather than shoot blanks!”

“Well, obviously I’m shooting nothing of the kind.”

“Don’t you _dare_ be smug!” She wrenched on his hold again but he was stronger than she by a factor and held her gently but firmly.

“Why aren’t you happy?” He spoke quietly and she went still, the anger draining from her face. He shook his head on a small smile. “I’m happy. I’m delighted.”

“I…” She looked down and tilted forward until her forehead could rest against his chest and his crumpled tie. She whispered so quietly he nearly didn’t hear her at all. “I’m scared.”

“I know.” He wound his arms around her and held her close. “Me too.”

“This is ridiculous.” She mumbled into him. “We can and have taken over entire countries in a productive afternoon and something that isn’t even as long as my thumb reduces us to nervous wrecks.”

“Destroying things is easy.” He threw up a small shield to hide them from prying eyes should any come along. Her mood would not be improved by being seen in this state. “Besides, we’ve done this before. You with better success than I. I’m sure we can muddle through.”

“I’ve never…the creating a whole other person inside of me thing is a bit…fresh.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be a fat hormonal monster.”

“More to love.” He shrugged and she stiffened in his arms.

He went carefully still, not knowing what he had done wrong this time and dreading finding out. She lifted her head and looked at him with eyes that shone too brightly.

“Don’t…” She sucked in a steadying breath. “Don’t say those words to me unless you mean it. Not just because you think I want to hear them. I’d rather hear nothing for a hundred years than a lie in a minute.”

Oh, Rumple very nearly sagged with a sigh, was that all?

“Of course I love you.” He resisted the urge to give her a little shake for being so foolish. “I wouldn’t say it otherwise. I mean, you’re three gallons of crazy in a two gallon bucket, a red hot mess sometimes, but that just means you know how to deal with me when I’m like that.”

“Way to inspire confidence, Rumple.” She rolled her eyes.

“Woman, I refuse to believe that there is something we cannot do. We have both –independently- raised good men. We can do so again…or a good woman. A daughter would be lovely.”

“Oh, great, that’s all I need. An heir to the throne with an unbelievably powerful sorcerer daddy wrapped around her little finger.”

“And we shall both cherish every moment of it.”

She frowned at him.

“What?”

“This is getting sappy.” She looked perturbed. “I feel we should set fire to something. How soon do you think I can use ‘hormonal’ as a single word argument?”

“I find that ‘Regina’ and a shrug has always suited my needs in the past.”

She elbowed him hard in the gut but he only laughed and slid his arm around her waist, pulling her close to his body.

“Why don’t we go and _fix_ the diner, feed you grilled cheese and then we can find someone to torment?” He mulled it over a moment. “I have a faerie feeling coming on. I think Blue needs to be reminded of who put her and her little hive into the hat. Unless you’d prefer Hook…or Snow…or –ooh- Charming. We haven’t meddled with any of them in a while.”

Regina took him by the hand and spun away, dragging him back towards the diner.

“You had me at grilled cheese.”

 

**_Two Months Later, the Hospital…_ **

 

Rumple sat beside Emma, his elbows propped on his knees, his heels drumming on the floor and otherwise generally acted more the neurotic psychopath than he actually was.

He hurled himself to his feet and Emma –without even looking up from her magazine- gripped him but the ridiculously overpriced belt and hauled him back down to sit on his chair.

“But what if…?”

“She’s fine.” Emma headed him off at the pass.

“Then why can’t I…?”

“Because you’re stressing her out.” Emma had her lines down pat by now. The last half hour had been variations along the theme and he was just getting wound tighter and tighter. She licked her finger and flicked to the next page in the article.

“I want to be there!”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have scaled up and hissed like a ‘gator in threat of being turned into a Luis Vuitton luggage set when Whale suggested she take off her shirt.” Emma lifted her head from her reading an arched a brow at him.

“It worked didn’t it? The necromancer is now no longer anywhere near Regina or my child.” He scowled at her and hunched forward so his elbows could be propped on his knees and his heels could drum on the floor again.

Emma blinked at that. It was odd to connect Whale to death in such a way, he was arguably the best doctor in the hospital but Gold had decided that said doctor was getting nowhere near Regina and that had been that.

It had been shortly after _that_ when Gold had been jettisoned from the exam room and left with Emma as a babysitter.

She’d been a little confused when Regina had asked her along in the first place but Regina’s reasons had abruptly become clear when she’d found out that she was one of the few people exempt from getting a face full of Alpha Male Dark One if she got within five feet of Regina.

Overprotective didn’t quite cover it.

Emma supposed that made sense. Neal had…they’d never had much time together considering how long father and son had both lived. Though Emma was a little worried as to how he was going to be as soon as Regina started _obviously_ showing. She had a bit of a bump going on, of course, but people mostly suspected pregnancy  because of the vicious rumour started by Maleficent (who had recently become a lot more amenable to learning the internet when she’d realised she could order custom baby onezies).

Gold continued to vibrate with suppressed…everything.

Emma decided to fill her role as designated distraction and keep him from chewing the walls. 

“I didn’t even know you could _do_ that anymore.” She admitted and went back to her reading.

“I always look like that.” Gold continued to fidget. He flapped his hand at himself. “This is the illusion.”

“Bullshit.” Emma slapped her magazine down onto her lap.

“Nope. Genuinely scaly.”

“Then why…?” Emma wafted at him with her magazine and considered trying to peel back his skin. Was it just an illusion, she would feel his scales if she touched him…?

Emma put that to a very full stop before she ran the risk of Regina finishing her appointment and coming back to the waiting room to find her friend with her hands on her…Rumple.

“You saw how Whale reacted when confronted with my natural form.” Rumple shrugged, amber eyes scanning back and forth over the other patients waiting to be seen who were giving the Dark One and the Saviour _plenty_ of play room.

“I suppose seeing it all the time would lessen the drama of it all.” Emma turned back to her magazine. She lifted her head when another thought occurred to her. “What about the bump? He or she gonna see you au natural or you gonna be pink and pokeable?”

“I hadn’t gotten that far.” His jaw clenched and unclenched, a muscle jumping in his cheek.

Ah, sensitive subject.

“Well, I think you should show them.” Emma flipped open her magazine with a snap of the pages. She wasn’t even reading it but the idea of mundanity appeared to calm Gold so she was going to keep it up. If she seemed relaxed then he seemed to (marginally) do so himself. “They’d think it was cool.”

“I don’t want my child to be afraid of me.” He gritted and his eyes flashed amber.

Emma’s mouth twisted, quite obviously unimpressed.

“Kids only fear what you teach them to fear.” She delivered her words of wisdom coolly then frowned a little. “Except for spiders. Everybody’s fucking terrified of spiders. And clowns.”

“And cuttlefish.” Gold huffed out a breath and examined his nails that looked a little too sharp and long.

“Cuttlefish?”

“I do not have a good history with arthropods.” He drawled and Emma decided to leave it at that.

“Back to the scales, I don’t think any child of yours and Regina’s would be afraid of anything, let alone that their daddy is covered in scales.”

“And has fangs.”

“Meh, we’re all of us carnivores.”

“And a tail.”

“A tail?!”

“That’s new.” He nodded and Emma just blinked at him and snorted.

“No, you’re kidding. You’ve become _less_ Dark One-ey, not more.”

“The scales, fangs and glowing eyes have more to do with the strength of my magic and how close it boils to the surface.”

“Oh.” Emma chewed her lip and thought that over. Her eyebrows raised. “Well, I gotta say, I’m surprised that you don’t have wings and horns by now. You’ve been more than a little –uh- sparky the last couple of weeks.”

“I’d be fine if people stopped _pawing_ her.” He snapped at her and Emma took it in her stride.

“It’s not like she’s over the moon with her belly suddenly being public property either. I’m just surprised that Whale isn’t setting up a separate clinic for reattaching limbs.”

“I give it a week.” Gold growled.

“Show me.”

“Huh?” Gold twisted to look at her and frown.

“The tail, show me the tail.”

“I’m not…! _No._ ”

“Aww, come ooooon. It can’t be that bad. Is it prehensile? Is it spiny? Ooh, has it got a club on the end?!”

“NO!” Rumple resisted the urge to edge away from the little blonde psychopath.

“You really do have a problem with being scaled, huh? You scared you’re going to hurt the little sprog?”

“No. They can be soft if I wish it.” He looked a little less harassed at the change in subject.

“I suppose that explains why Regina doesn’t look like a grated block of red cheddar half the time.” Emma nodded. “Oh, don’t give me that look. I have a separate option on the non-emergency line for noise complaints on _your_ street. You’d think between the pair of you that you could summon a freaking soundproofing spell.”

Rumple smirked and Emma rolled her eyes.

Though her goal was met, he was less likely to immolate the next person that so much as sneezed within his earshot.  

A situation she would like to perpetuate.

“So, how are we related?”

Rumple frowned and turned to look at her.

“The sprog and me.” Emma shrugged. “Regina is _technically_ my step-grandmother and you are Henry’s grandfather so…I’ll be his or her…niece?”

Rumple blinked several times in quick succession. He honestly hadn’t bothered to go past ‘related’ as far as Emma was concerned.

“Well…the child will be Neal’s sibling so –in a certain way- Henry’s uncle or aunt.”

“Oh, good, that’s a lot less hinky to me for some reason.” She frowned after a moment. “Though…my baby brother is _also_ Henry’s uncle soooo…oy vey. This family has _got_ to get its generations sorted out. They’re all screwy.”

“Of all the things that are ‘screwy’ with our apparent family, the age of uncles and/or aunts is the thing that gives you pause?”

“The outrageous is outrageous, no frame of reference. When the normal stuff is upside down…it’s weird.” Emma shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, Maleficent has declared herself pre-emptive godmother by the by and you can expect your first shipment of onezies within the week. That woman is a fiend after _somebody_ gave her a black credit card.”

Rumple smirked.

“She is an old friend…and Regina likes her.”

“Whipped.” Emma mimed striking him with a bullwhip.

“I have never found that to be a bad thing.” Rumple shrugged with an easy smile. Almost entirely relaxed.

So, naturally, Regina had to turn up and ruin all Emma’s hard work.

“Yes, thank you, I have…more than enough here.” Regina was backing away from a _very_ keen nurse, clutching a whole sheaf of leaflets in one hand.

Rumple _shot_ out of his chair, disappearing between on blink and the next and reappearing between Regina and the nurse.

He was torn for a moment, needing simultaneously to chase off the woman distressing _his_ woman but also ascertain that everything was fine and to shake it out of said medical professional if he must. He looked between both women and Regina took pity on him.

“Everything is fine. Ten fingers, ten toes and appears to be perfectly healthy. Isn’t that right, Nurse Ramkin?”

“Oh, for sure, very robust in there.” Ramkin nodded quickly, rightly sensing that agreement was her only option.

Rumple was still a bit torn and then shifted his attention fully to Regina examining her carefully to make sure nothing had gone amiss in the intolerable thirty nine minutes and fifty seven seconds he had been out of her presence.

“I’m fine too.”

“Why only fine?” Rumple frowned and Regina took a calming breath.

“I have pictures, do you want to see?”

“Yes!” He practically pounced on her and Regina laughed when one arm went around her waist and the other began to sift through the leaflets in her hand.

“They’re in my purse, genius.”

Regina wisely snatched it out of reach before he could just rip it to shreds to get the treasure inside. She thrust the leaflets into his hands and then her coat and she’d have given him her shoes too to keep him occupied but she didn’t think she could take them off without overbalancing.

“Hold these and this and this.” She dumped her purse on top of her coat and leaflets in his arms and rooted inside until she found the little envelope with their child’s first pictures. She slipped the first one free and held it out to him. “See? They are beautiful.”

Emma poorly chose that moment to join them and was nearly knocked on her ass when Rumple thrust all of Regina’s things against the Saviour’s chest so he could delicately take the ultrasound picture in his hands with a gentle touch usually reserved for baby birds and spun sugar confections.

“Oh.” His fingers traced over the contours of their child in grainy black and white and he was entranced for a long moment.

“How was he?” Regina accepted the leaflets from Emma and stuffed them into her purse before taking it back.

Rumple reached out blindly, not looking away from his intense study of the ultrasound picture, and plucked the purse from her hands before she could be subjected to its weight once more. He hissed when she tried to take it away from him and she simply rolled her eyes.

“I think he needs his juice and to be put down for his nap.” Emma grumbled and handed Regina her coat. Presumably she’d be allowed _that_. “Is he like this all the time?”

“Today is a good day.” Regina studied Rumple a moment, looking unimpressed.

“I can hear you, woman.”

“It was intentional, imp.”

“You’ll go over my knee.”

“Not for another six months, I bet.”

“What’s this?!” Rumple’s hand snapped out and gripped her by the wrist.

“What’s what?” Regina heaved a long suffering sigh.

“This. Here. A shadow.”

“Where?”

“ _There_.”

“Oh,” Regina nodded innocently, “that would be the other one.”

Rumple’s head snapped up to look at her, blinking rapidly.

“Twins, dear. We’re having twins.” Regina nodded when his mouth dropped open and he abruptly folded in half, catching his hands on his knees and breathing deeply.

Regina grinned wickedly.

“How does Henry _stand_ you two?” Emma glared and waved at Rumple. “You’re going to give him a heart attack!”

Henry was the only other person aside from Emma that was allowed into Regina’s personal space (though that seemed a little reluctant on Rumple’s part and Henry was having none of it when it came to being separated from his mother). He stayed with them in the manor most of the time and came to Emma on the odd day with tales of regular arguments between the couple. Most of which revolved around Regina ‘doing too much’ and Regina’s desire to flay her lover if she wasn’t allowed five minutes’ peace to do whatever the hell she wanted. Emma had been concerned to begin with but Henry had assured her that –when they weren’t bickering like an old married couple- they acted like ‘sappy gross’ newlyweds.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Regina planted her hands on her hips and tilted her head as she watched Rumple recover.

This was what he got for pulling all that ridiculous overprotective bullshit every time she set foot outside the house.

Even if it was a _little_ endearing the way he had nearly throttled Whale with his tail to chase him away.

“That was unkind.” Rumple murmured, trying to straighten up and then folding over again when his head swam. “Good grief, woman, is there _any_ way you could have broken the news more abruptly?”

“Well, I could have waited until the birth.” Regina looked up at the ceiling as if considering if that would have been the most shocking manner. Her smirk lessened, hmm, that _would_ have been more of a shock to him.

Damn, she’d missed out on that opportunity.

“Where’s Whale?” Rumple grumbled.

“Why?” Emma dreaded to think.

“Because if I’m going to throw up, I want it to be on _him._ ”

“He’s nowhere _near_ me, Rumple. I do believe you put paid to any of that kind of thing. Even should there be complications during labour he probably won’t…”

Rumple lifted his head and there was such a murderous look in his eye that Emma just leapt headlong into the conversation.

“He probably won’t even hesitate to keep his Hippocratic oath.” She looked meaningfully at Regina.

“That too.” The Mayor agreed.

Rumple growled and straightened up but he held his hand out to Regina to give him her coat so that she might be helped into it. A gesture she only allowed since he had done that before they had discovered she was pregnant.

Yes, it was endearing sometimes and –yes- she understood that he had already lost one child after going to truly extraordinary and in some places deplorable lengths to get him back but he couldn’t own her every move. Nor would he be able to do so for their child. She also understood that it was partially the primal magic that fuelled him as the Dark One that made matters worse.

This child, these children, would be of the Dark One. Not Rumplestiltskin as he had been when he had fathered Baelfire. The Dark One.

Magic, like any other life, wanted to propagate itself and their children would be _incredibly_ powerful when they were grown but still so delicate when they were young just like all newborns.

The primordial night from which the Dark One had sprung was well aware of all the things that lurked in the shadows and just as determined to terrify monsters so old they had existed before their names to _stay. AWAY._ From his children.

Which explained the tail, she supposed.

Not that she was complaining. He could be very dextrous with it when he wanted to.

The hanging from the chandelier with it though…that had to stop. She didn’t care if it gave him a good vantage point to guard the front door. At this point, even an army wouldn’t approach the door with the threat of the Dark One lying in wait within the manor’s walls.

An army with tanks.  

And crawling over the walls. She was sick of finding clawed holes in her very expensive velvet wallpaper. She didn’t care if he could fix it with a sweep of magic, that wasn’t the _point._

“Can I see?” Emma fell into step with Regina and Rumple when they made for the exit and everyone began to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

“Oh, uh, sure.” Regina seemed to be caught a little off guard but she gamely retrieved the envelope of photographs and a computer disc (apparently you got videos now). She handed the lot over to Emma and Emma ignored Rumple’s fierce frown at Regina bandying photographs of their child- -children around so easily.

Regina elbowed him without even looking.

“Aww, lookit their little pumpkin heads!” Emma smirked, the most practiced of any of them at reading ultrasounds. “I need to take a photo.” Emma was already digging into her pocket for her cell.

“Why?” Regina frowned a little and elbowed Rumple _again_ when he opened his mouth to snarl a response.

“Yeah,” Emma snorted, “because I wouldn’t be heckled into oblivion for not bringing back evidence of impending cutitude.”

“Cute-i-tude…” Rumple scowled. What did that even _mean?_

“Seriously, I’d be accused of evility because…they don’t need a reason, mmkay?” Swan shuffled through the photographs until she found one that was most obviously twins and recognisable even to a civilian. Regina was about three and a half months along so they even looked like babies –albeit with aforementioned pumpkin heads. “You should have _seen them_ when Lily bought me a Sherlock ‘High Functioning Sociopath’ shirt. I think mom burned it.”

Regina smirked.

“They haven’t calmed even a little?”

“Meh.” Emma held up the ultrasound photo and carefully snapped an image of it on her phoned before carefully putting everything back the way she had found it and handing it all back to Regina. “Dad’s been pretty ‘keep calm and carry on’ about the whole thing but…mom.”

“Mmm.” Regina nodded in sympathy. “You can always visit us at the manor. I know Henry would be happy to see you more.”

This time, when she elbowed Gold to keep him quiet, she actually knocked the air from his lungs.

Well, Emma supposed their relationship had always been a full contact sport.

“I’ll think about it.” Emma eyeballed Gold to make her meaning clear and Regina just rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“I’m thinking about finding the squid ink.” She murmured and Gold smirked suddenly.

“I know you prefer me to have all my moving parts, woman.”

“Oh look,” Emma pointed to an imaginary sign, “Entering the Province of Too Much Information.”

Regina chuckled and even Gold quirked a small smile at that.

“Seriously though, I gotta book.” Emma jerked her thumb in the opposite direction of their car when they left the hospital main entrance. “Lily’s about to pick a fight with Ruby and they’re still picking scales out of the booth seats and fur from the ceiling from last time.”

Regina nodded and lifted her hand with a silent question, magic sparking from her fingertips.

“Uh…better to I think.” Emma grimaced but nodded.

Regina’s magic washed over her and the world rearranged around Emma as she was teleported across town and ended up in the empty alley by the diner. She wasted no time in hopping the white picket fence and bounding up the steps into the diner.

“I’m just _saying_ if you don’t froth the milk so much…” Lily hunched her shoulders in what she hoped was a placating manner but apparently didn’t work with the werewolf.

“Oh, because –of the two of us- I should listen to the girl who doesn’t have thirty years’ experience on the job!”

Emma slithered to a halt on the tiles and glanced at Granny who looked supremely relieved at her arrival. Lily and Emma appeared to balance one another when they were in proximity and Emma was one of the few people that could actually get through to both Lily and Ruby when they were like this.

Emma trotted across the diner and hopped up onto the stool next to Lily, propping her elbows on the counter and her chin in her hands. She observed both women with rapt and obvious attention.

“Wha- -?!”

“God, when are you two going to fuck and get it over with?”

Granny choked on the coffee she had been sipping at the other end of the bar.

“ _What?!”_ Lily and Ruby reared back from her and spoke in exactly the same way at the same time.

“What?” Emma shrugged and looked confused. “The sexual tension is killing me…and possibly Granny because I think she’s choking on hot milk right now, maybe you really shouldn’t have frothed it so much, Rubes.”

“Granny!” Ruby hurried down the length of the bar, Emma turning to watch her go and then yelping when Lily punched her in the arm.

“Ow.” She turned back to her friend. “What was that for?”

“There is NO sexual tension!” Lily hissed. “I’m straight.”

Emma just blinked languidly at her.

“Oh.” She realised after a moment that she was supposed to respond. “Totally. So checking her out every five seconds whenever she’s within sight is…?”

“I’m not…she just…it’s the dragon part, alright?” Lilly rubbed at her arm self-consciously. “She smells nice is all.”

“Uh-huh. Sure.” Emma pulled out her cell phone and began to swipe her fingers over the screen. “You’d better make way for your mom then, ‘cause she thinks Ruby ‘smells nice’ too.”

“She does not!”

“Hate to break it to you, hon, but she totally does. She’s a card carrying cougar.” Emma lifted her head and frowned as the thought occurred. “Come to think of it, she’s centuries old so she’d be a cougar even if she went after Regina…which you’ve STILL neither confirmed nor denied –by the by.”

Lily opened her mouth and then gratefully leapt on the distraction when she noticed the picture on Emma’s phone.

“Oh, this the impending tadpole?”

“Plural. Twins. Lookit their little kidney bean selves.” Emma and Lily cooed for a moment.

“Forward it to me. Mom is barely restraining herself from nesting by proxy and the weirdest thing is that she seems to think of _Regina_ as one of the hatchlings too.”

“Jealous?” Emma smirked, the question only half serious, as she forwarded the picture.

“Oh hell no.” Lily looked completely honest. “The more distracted she is by other…kidney beans the less pressure I have to produce my own.”

Emma opened her mouth and then clipped it closed. She looked the length of the bar to see Ruby hovering worried around Granny and the older wolf trying to shoo her away with limited success. Ruby had prudently moved out of arm’s reach but was going no further.

“You and Rubes would have cute kids.” She turned back to Lily with a grin and had to slap her heartily on the back when she appeared to inhale her coffee rather than drink it. “Jeez, is Ruby not grinding the beans or something?”

“What even?!” Lily demanded as soon as she had swallowed her coffee in a square lump. “She…I…two women cannot a baby make.”

“Uh…magic?” Emma raised her eyebrows. “You really think that your mom wouldn’t know of a spell that could either temporarily change one of you into a guy or just mix the relevant mystical and sticky parts together in order to form another kidney bean or…”

“ _Why_ would she know how to do that?!”

“Well, she’s never mentioned your dad –well, sperm donor- so maybe no little swimmers were involved.”

“Oh…I…don’t even know what to do with that.” Lily swallowed hard. She’d had a lot to deal with in the last six weeks after all.

“Hey, you’ve got Regina’s colouring is all I’m saying.” Emma held up her hands and said colouring dropped three shades with that single statement.

Emma smiled winsomely.

“Maybe you should ask your mom about it.”

Lily scowled, opened her mouth, clipped it closed and slipped down off her stool. She didn’t even glance at Ruby on her way out so she missed the way Ruby tracked her every move.

Emma smirked, well, at least this way she’d find out if Maleficent and Regina had ever been a _thing_.

She sobered at the prospect of what she was going to do if it turned out that she was precisely right and Lily really was…nah. Never happen. Regina was more than a little maternal in a terrifying sort of way, if she had known that she’d had a child in Lily… _if_ she had known.

Emma pursed her lips and resolved to find a spell book that might tell her how to do a ‘paternity’ test on someone.

Inquiring minds needed to know and all that.

Still, she swept that aside in favour of sending the picture message to the recipient she had originally planned for it. She caught her tongue between her teeth as she thought on the caption that should go with it and then grinned meanly when she hit on the perfect one.

She tapped it out rapidly and hit send.

 

**_New York…_ **

 

The message sat on her phone in her notifications menu for _hours_ before Zelena snapped and finally opened it.

A swirling black and white image popped up on the screen and she frowned at it in confusion.

Though her hand came up to rest on her own bump when she recognised an ultrasound image. She had seen plenty of her own after all. She frowned again when she saw that something was off with it, glancing at the caption, her expression smoothed into a mask of carefully restrained rage.

_D’aaawww, twins! They really are twice as happy without you :D_

They hadn’t replaced the microwave since her last run in with it so Zelena had to settle for dropping her cell down the garbage disposal.

Then she started screaming.

 

**_Three Months Later…_ **

 

“What did she DO?!” Emma drew to a halt in the loft when she trotted down the stairs to find Gold sitting at the dining table with an ice pack pressed to one side of his face.

“It’s his own fault.” Henry shrugged and dug into his cereal.

This had the distinct smell of Rumple’s over protective self coming back to bite him. Judging by Henry’s complete lack of concern about the entire affair, he was probably right.

“In hindsight,” Gold admitted, carefully peeling the ice pack away to reveal a livid bruise over his right eye that looked so sore that Emma sucked a breath in through her teeth, “not one of my better ideas.”

“Oh, good gravy, what did you do _now?_ ” Emma huffed out an annoyed breath and crossed the room to stand over Gold and clap her hand none too gently over his face. He gritted his teeth in pain but it eased when she quickly healed the wound.

That was why they were there after all. She had found out a few weeks back that Rumplestiltskin was no good at healing magic. Regina was, but she evidently hadn’t been in the mood to be dealing any of it out to the subject of her ire.

Gold turning up to have the various wounds, that even his scaly constitution couldn’t stave off, healed was becoming something of a regular thing.

“She was exerting herself.” Gold defended himself and Emma looked to Henry for the translation.

“She was cleaning the kitchen.”

Emma dropped down onto the seat opposite Gold and waved her hand in a motion to continue.

“She was on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor!” Gold looked between his grandson and Emma in a ‘what was I supposed to do?!’ manner.

“She’s restless.” Emma frowned. “You won’t let her _do_ anything. You freak the fuck out whenever she goes outside, you barely let her do any magic which is seriously putting a crimp in her day and you’re rationing her _paperwork_. It’s a wonder to me that she hasn’t killed you.”

Rumple scowled.

“Seriously though, if you force her into it, digging your grave is _really_ going to be too much for her.” Emma folded her arms over her chest with a thud.

“I’m just,” _worried, terrified, agonised, vexed, bothered, troubled, anxious, apprehensive, troubled, distressed, angst-ridden, pained, tormented_ , “concerned.”

Emma let loose a breath and took pity on him.

“I get that, but did it ever occur to you that confining her is only stressing her out more? She’s cooking two whole other people in there.” Emma waved at her own stomach. “She’s too hot, she’s too cold, she’s uncomfortable, she needs to pee _all the time_ , her mood ring just turned black and exploded, she feels sick if she eats the wrong thing, she feels weak if she doesn’t eat every two hours, she wants to cry at a _toilet paper_ commercial not to mention that she’s out to _here_.”

Emma held her hand out in front of her to indicate the expansion of Regina’s waistline and Rumple just looked more and more alarmed as the list grew.

“She feels fat, unattractive, worried, scared, wondering if she’s up to this, worried about whether or not you’re going to stick by her through it…”

“She said that?” Rumple looked between Henry and Emma, suddenly appearing as terrified as he felt at the prospect of Regina in pain of any sort. “When did she say that?!”

“Chillax!” Emma shoved him back down into his seat when he made to rise. “I’m going on what I went through. It’s rough. Her body’s not her own anymore and you’re taking away any control over her life that she might retain and you _know_ how much she loves being out of control.”

Rumple sat back in his seat with a thud and appeared to have been given much to think about. He opened his mouth after a moment but was silenced by a knock on the door.

Henry didn’t look all that surprised even if Emma wasn’t expecting visitors. He hopped up out of his seat, ambled to the door and flipped the lock so that he could open it and reveal his mother on the other side.

Regina wore an expression that Emma had never seen on her before.

She looked… _sheepish_.

“Come in, mom.” Henry reminded her and Regina cautiously stepped inside as if unsure of her reception.

Emma had thought they were long since past that but apparently not. Still, she was distracted from commenting on it when she took a good look at Regina. She’d last seen her only a few days ago but she seemed to have gotten even larger since then.

She was a very small woman, which she worked hard to make everyone forget, but it had become more apparent as the twins grew larger and larger within her. That and her pregnancy had put paid to her fantastic collection of designer fuck-me heels. She wore –if not flats- then shoes with barely any heel at all.

She still used her personality to seem ten feet tall when she was up to it, but it was severely disconcerting for Emma to turn around sometimes when they stood side by side and realise that she could see over the top of the Evil Queen’s head.

The scourge of a nation just should _not_ be pocket sized.

Still, Regina was handling the changes physically with her usual class and aplomb. She still always looked great though Emma’s sources (Henry) had revealed that Regina could be caught in sweats and one of Rumple’s sweaters if she didn’t have to go outside on that given day.

Emma thought it was deplorably adorable that Rumple had gone out of his way to buy several sweaters, worn them a couple of times so that they smelled of him and then left them available for Regina to thieve.

They were actually ridiculously cute when they weren’t wreaking havoc.

Rumple bolted from his chair and stepped aside, opening his mouth as if to insist she sit but then something stopped him.

“Hi.” Regina said quietly.

She glanced at Henry when he sauntered back to the table and plopped down to dig into his cereal again. Regina frowned a little and then glanced at Emma. Who snatched up the cereal box and began to eat it like popcorn.

“Hello, love.” Rumple spoke carefully and floundered for something to say that wasn’t _please don’t stand there looking so fragile_. “You…drove?”

Ah, this was another sore point between them. Regina wasn’t much for actually walking anywhere and was of the opinion that people could just _deal_ with her suddenly appearing here and there in a plume of smoke.

Rumple, predictably, hated it and wanted her not to…do whatever it was that she did to do the whole disappear-reappear thing. Emma’s lessons hadn’t gotten that far.

“I…haven’t teleported in months.” Regina admitted after a moment. “I’ve just been…leaving you under the impression that I was.”

“Why?” Rumple spoke at length and she looked even guiltier.

Regina glanced pointedly at Emma who just dug more cereal out of the box and munched happily. Regina narrowed her eyes a little and turned back to Rumple.

“Because you were pissing me off. I wanted to harass you for harassing me.” Regina shrugged helplessly. “You’re crushing me, Rumple. It’s driving me crazy. You _have_ to let me be. At least a little. I’m still ME. I’m still a sorceress of some mind boggling power that is more than familiar with looking after herself. I am _not_ just an incubator for your progeny.”

 “I do _NOT_ think that.” Rumple closed the distance between them and took her hands in his, ducking a little so she had to meet his gaze. “I love you. I love you more than myself or my power or anything I can think of in any world. I love you and I love our children who aren’t even here yet but I know they’re going to be perfect.”

Regina pressed her lips together and smiled a little. He gently took her chin and lifted her head so she looked at him once more.

“You’ve turned my life upside down and inside out and it terrifies me. I’m a coward, I should be running the other way, scheming, planning, desperately trying to get away but I _cannot_. I love you too much to leave you, to hurt you, in that way. I’m too scared not to be brave. Brave enough to stay here with you and protect you and love you and our children. I haven’t the choice of that, it is simply as it is.”

“That’s…good to hear.” Regina’s voice cracked a little and she sucked in a steadying breath. “But you need to be a little braver and trust me not to just shatter for no good reason. There’s a difference between holding me close and crushing me and you know that I can do nothing but fight if I feel trapped. Put me in a corner and I come out swinging. It’s the way I am.”

“I know. It’s hard. I will _try_. Though there’s a lot of growling going on up here.” He dipped his head so that his forehead rested against hers.

“If you can leash the beast long enough to bed me, you can do it long enough for me to go to the grocery store unattended.”

Henry clattered his spoon against his bowl with a splash of milk and a glare to remind his mish-mash parents that he was still there.

Regina and Emma smirked and even Rumple’s lips quirked.

“My point is; we can’t keep fighting. I _do_ love you but there’s only so much crazy I can be before it becomes unhealthy for…everyone.”

“I never want to fight you.”

Regina did nothing but purse her lips a little and arch an eyebrow and Rumple chuckled.

“Okay, sometimes I enjoy fighting you immensely in the right setting.”

Henry huffed a sigh and dropped his spoon into his bowl again, giving up on breakfast until the love-fest stopped putting him off.

“I can only try my damnedest, love.” Rumple laced their fingers together and rested their hands on her bump which was not so little anymore. “I have a hell of an incentive.” He took her other hand and laid it over his heart.

Regina bit her lip and looked like she very much wanted to trust him but she was still so wary of life kicking her in the teeth again and again and she felt particularly vulnerable and scatty right now.

“Remember the other night, when we were fighting over who was doing the dishes,” Rumple chuckled at how stupid that seemed now, “and you were so angry that you told me to take what was mine and leave?”

Regina rolled her eyes, a slight smile tugging at her lips.

“I remember.”

“Do you remember what I did next?”

“You picked me up and left the house. Which I still think was moronic, you could have put your back out.” She heaved a sigh. A stupid, smiling, sigh.

“Well then, I think that says what my feelings on the matter are. I’m not going anywhere, I’ll stick by you no matter what. Even if that means keeping my paranoid mania about you being out of my sight for more than thirty seconds to myself.”

“Promise?” She looked him dead in the eye.

“I swear to you.” Rumple nodded seriously and she let loose a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding, nodding.

“Good.” She shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry about…throwing the knife in your eye.”

Emma nearly choked on her cereal. A _knife?!_

“It’s alright, it had grown back by the time we got here.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter and it truly didn’t to him.

He had been given a second chance at _everything_ with the Author’s rearranging of endings happy or otherwise. A second chance at love, at fatherhood, at being a decent human being (even if he didn’t actually look like one under the glamour). A second chance that he wasn’t going to squander.

“Now,” he sought a way to truly apologise, “why don’t we go back home and we can cook some breakfast?”

“We?” She watched him carefully.

“I’m a terrible cook, I’ll need help.” He nodded firmly. Telling himself that he _could_ cope with her doing such things so long as he was there to supervise. He thought the knowledge that she was fireproof was a steadying influence.

“And I’ll do the dishes afterwards?”

Rumple looked at her for a long moment and cleared his throat, evidently controlling himself.

“And I will dry them and put them away.” That seemed alright, less bending and lifting for her. Yes. He could cope with that.

He _would_ cope with that.

“Deal.” Regina said quickly before he could renege. She leaned around Rumple to see her son. “You coming, Henry? Have something a bit more substantial than Wheaties?”

“Yeah, because you two are going to get through breakfast without make-up mushiness. Against the fridge.” Henry prodded at his disintegrating cereal. “Again.”

Emma coughed whilst still trying to eat her cereal and nearly did herself a damage.

Regina chuckled and Rumple looked completely unrepentant.

“We’ll see you later then.” Regina nodded and Rumple turned to nod to the boy as well.

They left the apartment hand in hand, Rumple quite evidently resisting the urge to try and take the car keys from his woman.

Once the door closed behind them, Emma calmly reached out and tapped a button on her cell phone that had somehow ended up on the table.

Henry frowned.

“Did you manage to take a picture? They didn’t even kiss or anything.” He failed to see how this would rile Zelena.

They had all given up on trying to get Emma to stop tormenting Zelena and Robin by association. Emma was just having too much fun to let it drop now. Besides, she figured Zelena must expect it by now if the repeated buyings of new phones was any indication. If she really didn’t want to know what was going on, she’d stop using anything digital altogether.

“Ah, my son, a picture may hold a thousand words but,” Emma turned her phone to show a file with a music note on it, “an audio file can hold just as much.”

Henry’s mouth dropped open for a long moment and then he coughed a laugh.

“You’re terrible!” He laughed.

“I’m a mad genius.” Emma disagreed and hit send.

The morning was going incredibly well and she hadn’t even had her coffee yet.

 

**_New York…_ **

 

Robin could only stare at the phone in his hands as he listened to the message that an unknown number had just sent.

Swan, of course. It could only be her.

Regina was pregnant.

Robin felt like all the air had been knocked from his lungs. He sat down suddenly on the end of the bed and tried not to throw up. He gulped in deep breaths of air and squeezed his eyes shut.

He realised that…that it was really…he’d lost her.

Gold had changed for her. No longer the coward, no longer afraid of admitting his feelings, of loving, of trusting. Gold had changed and he had _meant it_ when he had done so.

For the woman he loved.

What had Robin done?

Pushed her away because of his code. Broken that and turned her into his mistress. Abandoned her for a woman that wasn’t even the mother of his son and…and fathered a child on her. So now they were stuck together. He and Zelena and Regina was…Regina was no longer his.

He felt the loss like a bloodied hole in his soul.

She was gone. She was really gone.

There was no hope.

She had moved on too.

Only…she loved the one she had moved on with, and he was trapped with the one that had ensnared him.

 He had chosen wrong.

And now there was no going back.

 

**_Two Months Later…_ **

 

Emma glanced at Regina as she drove the Mercedes up the hill towards the town line.

“You got it?”

“It’s in here somewhere. I _know_ it is.” Regina growled and rummaged deeper into her purse. Not the easiest thing to be doing considering that her bump was huge and her arms had never been that long to begin with.

Hence Emma driving the Mercedes.

Emma was pretty sure that she hadn’t been this bad when _she_ had been pregnant and she’d been surrounded by criminals at the time but when Regina said that she wasn’t getting in the Yellow Bug, she _wasn’t_ getting in the Bug.

“You can use mine,” Emma offered shifting her weight onto her other hip, “left pocket.”

Regina huffed an annoyed sigh and dumped her purse in the footwell, reaching into Emma’s pocket to snag her cell phone. She scrolled through the memory and stilled when she came across the relevant number.

“Really? ‘Evil Overlord Number Two’?”

“You can’t deny that it’s not fitting.” Emma straightened in her seat and smirked.

Regina rolled her eyes and hit ‘call’. She clapped the phone to her ear and listened to it burr on the other end. It was answered quickly.

“ _Swan?”_

“Guess again, dear.” Regina smiled and she could practically feel him stiffen on the other end of the call.

“ _What’s wrong? Has something happened?”_

“Not ‘wrong’ per se.” Regina admitted cautiously. “I just got a call from my sister. She said that her baby arrived safe and sound but…she doesn’t want it. She’s left it at the town line.”

Regina’s jaw clenched as she thought about it. Truly, was there a depth her sister would _not_ sink to in order to fuck up Regina’s life just a little? She had already taken the man she had loved, already shoehorned herself irrevocably into his life, tied him to her for the rest of their lives…now this. Now she was going to hurt him again by abandoning the child she had made with him. 

Regina might not love Robin, not anymore, but she still _cared_. She cared that an infant was about to be abandoned on a cold lonely road in the middle of freaking nowhere in a Maine winter.

There was a moment of palpable silence on the other end of the call as Rumple digested that and then he grunted low in his throat.

“ _I’ll meet you there._ ”

He ended the call and Regina’s brows rose.

“He didn’t even heckle me as to whether or not I was driving or had a minder.”

“Well, you didn’t whine about calling him in the first place so I guess you’re both growing as people.” Emma twisted her hips again so Regina could slot her cell back into her pocket.

“In every way but upward it would seem.” Regina grumbled and shifted about uncomfortably.

Good grief, a month to go and she was MORE than ready to be done with this whole pregnancy thing. She was tired, she was sore, she couldn’t find a comfortable position even if Rumple suspended her mid-air and grouchy didn’t quite cover it. That and her sister had decided to dish out a double helping of bat-shit-insane this morning just to complete her day.

Regina let loose a sigh and glared at Emma when she grinned.

“What?”

“You’re both adorable.”

“We are NOT!”

“Totally cute. Like a scaly-Hugo Boss-wearing _Lady and the Tramp_. I keep expecting to find you sharing a plate of spaghetti in the diner some day.”

“Unlikely, the last time someone tried to share a meal with me, I stabbed them with a fork.”

“Yup, Henry sure did learn his lesson.” Emma nodded with a smirk.

“I get hungry. You’d think being a former mass murderer would make people think twice!” Regina defended herself and was quiet for a moment. “Do you think he’s worried I won’t love him as much?”

Emma glanced away from the road long enough to see that Regina was serious and shook her head firmly.

“No. No way.” Emma huffed out a breath. “Henry’s days of doubting you are long since done, Regina. Besides, Henry has always wanted MORE family. He’s delighted at the thought of having younger siblings. I mean, Neal is more like a baby brother to him than an uncle but it’s not the same. He’s ecstatic for you. Really.”

“Good.” Regina nodded and let loose a slow breath.

“You were really worried?”

“Do _you_ ever stop worrying about Henry?”

“Point.” Emma shrugged. She let loose a slow sigh. “You know this is a trap, right?”

“Of course it’s a trap.” Regina nodded. “Even if you hadn’t spent the last six months driving her insane, she was never going to let me be happy if she could help it. Hurting Robin will still hurt me, even if I’m not in love with him, she knows that and she’s going to use it to her advantage.” She spoke calmly but Emma could hear the barely restrained rage beneath.

The fact that Regina hated her sister’s guts notwithstanding, she would still happily murder anyone that thought to harm her niece or nephew. Family was family. Henry had learned that from Regina, not anyone else.

“Dibs on smacking her upside the head.” Emma thought to get there first.

“ _After_ I set fire to her.” Regina promised darkly.

Both women fell silent when the orange line came into view and –just beyond it- a tiny basket.

“My god…” Regina’s throat closed up in a swell of emotion that was so convoluted that she couldn’t name it. “I didn’t…”

“Yeah, I didn’t think she’d really do it either.” Emma murmured and slowed the Mercedes to a halt. She hurled herself out of the door and nodded to Rumple when he shimmered into existence on the passenger side and helped Regina out of the car.

“What do we think?” Rumple looked between both women.

“Trap.” Emma and Regina said together and he nodded. Glad they were all on the same page.

“Have you had a chance to look around?” Regina tugged at her scarf. She was so _hot_.

Very, very, _very_ , glad that they were on the home stretch of this whole incubating Dark One Spawn stunt.

“I can’t see her on either side. The trees and undergrowth are too thick.” Rumple admitted after a moment. “It doesn’t mean she’s not there but…the child is real.”

Regina and Emma approached the town line, standing very close to it and peering into the basket.

The baby was crying.

They couldn’t hear it, of course. The town barrier prevented it, but they could see its little mittened fists waving as it screamed. It couldn’t see them either and it thought it was alone.

Its skin did have a distinct…green tint to it. Despite the lack of magic beyond the town’s borders. Perhaps a side effect of Zelena using the clover charm to appear as Marian still for Roland’s sake. Either way, mundane doctors would have been baffled at the verdant tint to the child’s skin. Nowhere near as bright and shimmering as her mother’s had been…but still definitely inhuman.

His or her little face was scrunched up in fear, fat tears rolling over chubby cheeks and distress practically radiating from the child.  

Regina’s heart clenched and her hand rested on her swollen middle instinctively. Horrified that her sister could do such a thing. She spun back to Rumple and she didn’t even have to say anything.

“I’ll go.” His hand came down on hers and he gave her fingers a squeeze to try and comfort her. “I’m the toughest of all of us and she’ll hesitate to hurt me.”

“You sure about that?” Emma looked at him askance.

“Yes. I am.” Rumple nodded.

“You’ll limp.”

“No he won’t.” Regina spoke. “I healed his leg months ago.”

Emma blinked at that and then decided to take it in her stride.

“You won’t have your scales out there.” Emma reminded him. She knew that she had little hope of talking him out of it and being the voice of reason was an alien experience for her but she had to _try._

“Aye, I will.” Gold glanced at her. He waved at himself. “I told you, this is the illusion. Magic still exists over there it just doesn’t replenish. I’ll be fine.”

Emma’s mouth twisted but both Regina and Gold looked determined.

“Alright.”

“You have the scroll?”

“We’ll toss it over once you’ve picked up Verdania over there.” Emma nodded to the baby in the basket.

“Verdania?”

“What?” Emma shrugged and spoke primly. “I’ve been supportive throughout the entire pregnancy. I’m practically godmother. I get to name her in the absence of parents that give a damn.”

Regina smirked, despite the circumstances and then sobered when she turned to Rumple. She gripped his sleeves in her hands and looked him in the eye.

“Come back to me.”

“Try and keep me away.” He offered a small smile and leaned down to kiss her on the mouth. “I’ll be right back.”

He turned to the town line and felt the shimmer of the town barrier press against him. He gritted his teeth, remembering the terror that Belle had inflicted on him when she had forced him over it a year ago. He had feared being trapped –alone- on the other side and he still did though –he glanced back at Regina- for different reasons now. He had so much more to come back for this time.

He smiled for Regina and nodded to her, then stepped over the barrier.

He grimaced when the barrier curtain parted for him, tearing at the glamour lain over his entire body. He growled when it peeled away. It wasn’t exactly painful but it wasn’t comfortable either. The softness of his human self melted away to reveal burnished gold scales beneath, a long spiny tail slunk from his lower back beneath the tails of his coat and swept back and forth behind him with a coiling twitch.

The dull grey light of winter glinted off his scales and his amber eyes glowed softly as they scanned back and forth over the road. He moved as cautiously as a deer tentatively stepping into a meadow and wished idly that the child would stop squalling so that he might hear the approach of its mother more easily.

He glanced down at the baby, fists waving, screaming with a healthy set of lungs.

The sound was _very_ difficult to ignore, the sound of a baby’s screams at the _exact_ pitch that interfered with the inner ear and spurred an adult into action no matter if they even liked children.

How could Zelena _ignore_ that?

The child wasn’t even his and it took everything he had not to sweep down and scoop it up into his arms, hushing it until its cries stopped.

Still, there would be little point in that if Zelena managed to get the drop on him.

She might not have magic, but a fifty calibre would do nicely in its stead and –whilst his scales could turn away most magical attacks- he wasn’t sure that they would withstand a bullet of such weight and velocity.

Nothing moved.

Not a twitch of a leaf or a rustle of ferns, not even a shadow in the trunk of a tree.

After long tense moments of just watching, Rumple deemed it as safe as it was going to get and moved to the basket.

“Hey, little one, don’t cry.” He sank down onto his heels, his tail balancing him flawlessly. “Uncle Rumple is right here.”

The baby, as soon as his shadow fell over it, ceased crying. Huge blue eyes opened and the baby’s woollen hatted head cocked in its blankets as it saw an unfamiliar scaly face shimmering above it.

“That’s right. You’re not alone.” Rumple kept his voice light even as his amber eyes lifted again to scan the road and the forest surrounding.

He dropped his attention to the basket and set to examining it. He would not put it past Zelena to rig the basket with some kind of trap. Sacrificing her own child in order to get back at them.

Rumple’s jaw clenched at the mere _thought_ and he was careful in his study of the basket for trip wires or pressure switches. His clawed hands slipped beneath the baby, tentatively feeling for something under the child or a suspicious lump beneath the blankets.

It was then that Zelena shot him.

He heard the gunshot before he even felt it.

Rumple grunted as the bullet hit him like a sledgehammer. It caught him in the right shoulder, launching him clean off his feet and spinning him to the ground with a meaty thud and a gasp of air leaving his lungs.

He forced himself to sit up quickly, holding up his hand in the direction of the barrier. He couldn’t see Regina on the other side but he knew that Swan must be bodily restraining her by now from coming to his aid.

Turned out –luckily- that his scales _were_ bulletproof.

The more you know.

“Well, well, looking a little Darker than usual, Rumple.” Zelena prowled out onto the road, a gun heavy and matt black in her hand.

Rumple eyeballed it but said nothing.

“The tail is new. I didn’t think you’d look like _this_ when you walked into my trap.” Zelena raked him with a glance. “No matter. Delighted you could join me. You might be able to shake off a shot at a distance, but I don’t think you’ll be able to do that again at point blank range. Shall we find out?”

“You’re an idiot, Zelena.” Rumple rolled his eyes. Done with this. “You’ve fallen into your own trap.”

“I don’t think so.” Zelena smiled and drew level with the basket, putting it between herself and the barrier. Without the gun ever wavering from the target it had painted between his eyes, she crouched low to take the basket by the handle.

The child instantly started crying again.

Rumple smirked.

“Not even she loves you. Your own child.” His teeth bared in a hiss. “How does it feel, Zelena? How does it feel to be so thoroughly unloved?”

“Powerful.” Zelena snarled despite the flicker of something pained deep in her eyes. “Powerful enough to have the Dark One prone at my feet.”

“Not prone.” Rumple cocked his head and smiled. “Below the line of fire.”

“What?” Zelena frowned.

“Magic from Storybrooke can still affect the outside world.” Rumple snarled. “Trust a witch to bring a gun to a fire fight.”

Maybe Regina could read his lips, maybe she had finally shaken off Emma or maybe even she just had such a sense of dramatic timing that she just _knew_ that her spell had to be loosed then, but the result was the same.

A white hot column of flame as thick as Rumple’s thigh roared through the town barrier with a high pitched ringing sound that burned through Zelena’s arm gun and all.

The red hot metal ignited the gunpowder in the bullets and the cacophonous explosion launched Zelena off her feet.

Rumple was in motion in an instant, snatching the basket out of Zelena’s hand before she could drop it, wrapping his body around it to protect the baby inside from heat and flame. Molten metal from the immolated gun pattered down onto his back even as he slid away over the road from Zelena. The baby screamed in his ear but that at least meant that it was healthy enough to do so.

He slithered to a halt and remained tensed for a long moment, twisting like a snake to see Zelena crumpled on the road a few feet away. The very tip of his tail ticked back and forth, waiting for her to do something and –when she remained prone- he levered himself up to look down at his niece for she was a girl if the pink onezie was anything to go by.

Emma crossed the barrier, breathing hard, and looked down at Gold.

“You okay?”

Rumple did a quick internal inventory, his eyes never leaving Zelena and nodded.

“Yes.”

“Your suits all ripped up.”

“I’m fine.”

“By a _bullet_.”

“It glanced off.” Rumple murmured and got his feet under himself, he picked up the basket and slid it back towards Emma. “Go back over the barrier, give her to Regina.”

He felt Emma take the basket and remained crouched on the road, watching Zelena for any sign of movement or light at all. She’d have lost no blood from the burn of Regina’s magic, but that did not mean that she wouldn’t go into shock anyway and shock could be fatal.

Rumple uncoiled to his feet, his tail twitching still, and prowled closer.

Reaching out with one sharp toed shoe, he prodded at Zelena’s back.

Hooking his heel over her smouldering shoulder, he flopped her onto her back.

Zelena rolled insensate against the road, her head rocking to the side, her eyes closed. She was breathing, he could see that, he could also see her pulse thudding rapidly in the hollow of her throat. Her right arm was just gone. Burned away right to the shoulder. He could see the blackened char of her bone amongst the seared bacon smell of her immolated flesh. There would be no pain at least, her nerve endings would have been melted away.

 His jaw rocked to the side as he considered his options.

She would die if he left her out here. From shock or the cold or perhaps even the pain of losing the last person that _may_ have loved her in the future…but if he took her inside the town barrier…she could get to Regina.

And that was another thing; when Regina had first defeated Zelena, she had offered her sister a second chance. Did that offer still stand?

Rumple ran his tongue over his fangs and considered.

All being told, everyone would be better off if she was dead.

The child would have to stay in Storybrooke. With that green skin, she couldn’t live safely anywhere else. Which meant that Zelena would have to be in Storybrooke if she was to play any part in her child’s life, no matter how twisted she was, for Regina would take her niece in. It wasn’t even a question, Regina would not see any family of hers go to someone else.

Then there was the thief to consider. The child was still his, no matter who her mother was. He did have a say in her upbringing which meant the vaunted soulmate would be coming back to Storybrooke.

Rumple narrowed his eyes at that. He did not approve.

He jumped when his cell phone rang. Pulling it from his pocket, he set it to his ear.

“Woman.” He greeted Regina. Who else would be calling him?

 _“What are you thinking?_ ”

“That I am grateful you know better than to come over the town line.” He could hear a cooing on the other end of the line. Swan with the baby.

 _“And?_ ”

“That we’d all be better off with the witch dead.”

He heard her inhale sharply on the other end of the line. It was odd to think that she was just a few feet away but he knew better than to turn and look. He wouldn’t be able to see her and he wasn’t turning his back on Zelena for even a second.

 _“That may be true but she’s still Verdania’s mother._ ”

“The name has stuck then?”

 _“It does suit her.”_ Regina was quiet a moment. “ _Though she’s probably called something else._ ”

“We can name her if we wish.” Rumple’s tail swung round and he prodded Zelena with it. Hard.

No response.

She was either truly out for the count or faking it remarkably well.

 _“She’s not ours. We’ll have to call Robin._ ”

“Assuming he’s still alive.” Rumple couldn’t hide his smirk. He was rather enamoured with the thought of the flip-flopping bit of nonsense that the fates had apparently decided was to be Regina’s might have been staked out for the crows or flying monkeys or…whatever.

 _“I doubt she’d have killed him. I think she planned to come here and have her petty vengeance before going back to him_.” Regina was quiet a moment. “ _I think we should bring her inside._ ”

“She had a _gun_ , love. She’d have shot you if she’d gotten the chance. Endangered you. Endangered our _children_. I can’t abide that.”

“ _Her magic is gone, destroyed, she’s no threat to us in here. She can be locked away_.”

“For the rest of her life? We’re never _really_ going to trust her, you know that. Putting her in a cage until she dies is just cruel.”

 _“We’ve all of us had second chances and good luck to her getting through the Dark One, the Evil Queen and the Saviour combined to try and harm one hair on our children’s heads. ESPECIALLY considering we shall be counting hers as one of them._ ”

“I thought we’d sworn off villainy.” He smirked.

“ _I’m pregnant, hormonal and carrying half my bodyweight in neonate and associated fluids, I can do what I like.”_

Rumple chuckled at that and tensed only when the roar of an engine reached his keen ears.

 _“What is it?”_     

“An engine. Truck.” Rumple inhaled deeply and caught the scent of diesel. “Not familiar.”

 _“It’ll be Robin_.”

“Shall we let him decide what to do with his new wife?” Rumple kicked Zelena again. Just to be sure she really was unconscious.

Honest.

_“No. I don’t want her dead.”_

Rumple huffed an irritable sigh through his nose.

“I preferred it when you were debauched, you know. We had such fun killing things together.”

She laughed on the other end of the line and his lips quirked in a small smile even as the truck grew closer and closer along the road. He supposed this might be awkward should it not be Robin and Roland in the truck. Civilians coming across a gold skinned spiny tailed man in the middle of a road leading to apparently nowhere…ach well. He could always eat them.

 _“Yes, well, I was hardly mother material back then. I think your little alpha brain might well have imploded months ago if you had to try and protect your spawn whilst they were inside someone that was a danger to them._ ”

“Nonsense.” Rumple dismissed it. “You’d never hurt our children and my alpha brain is not tiny.”

 _“Well, it’s not like I’ve had much experience of it in recent weeks._ ” She grumbled and he chuckled.

Abstinence –recommended by the midwife at this late stage- was not their strong suit. He did his absolute level best to keep her pleased despite such limitations as she did him but she did so enjoy a good fuck and her mood –which hadn’t exactly been benign to begin with- had deteriorated proportionately. 

“Just a few weeks more, love.”

She gave an adorable little growl and his smirk broadened into a grin until she must have seen the change in the line of his cheekbone.

“ _Stop grinning.”_ She huffed. “ _This is horrible. YOU can carry the next ones._ ”

“Already planning a second clutch?” He murmured, narrowing his glowing eyes at the approach of the truck. “It is the thief.”

 _“Eggs were an option? Seriously? I could have done that?”_ Regina’s brain was constantly in focus but perhaps not necessarily on the most important issues. Baby brain, she called it.

“I don’t see why not. I am mostly reptile.” Rumple flexed his claws and examined them. “I think.”

 _“I hate you._ ”

“You would have been adorable nesting. Curled up around them and growling at anyone that came too close.”

 _“I hate you so much._ ”

“In the airing cupboard in the hallway, I’d bet. You’d have rarely left the house. You know, I begin to approve of this more and more the longer I think on it.”

 _“A bit LATE don’t you think?!”_ She snarled though it was mostly harmless.

“There’s always next time.” Rumple replied mildly.

 _“So long as you’re the female and the one doing the laying- -WHAT, Swan?! It’s a perfectly normal request._ ”

Rumple snickered.

“Scaly breasts.” He reminded her.

 _“A sacrifice I’m willing to make._ ”

“I _knew_ you and Mal had more heat than just firebreathing between you.” Rumple grinned again. “Is it too late in the game to beg the dragon come play with us?”

 _“I do not share._ ”

“I’m happy to just watch.” Rumple eyeballed the truck as it slithered to a halt and Robin hopped out onto the road.

 _“Liar._ ”

“Must go, dearest. Murders to avert et cetera.”

“ _No limb breaking or decapitations, sweetie._ ” She mocked lightly.

“No promises. Chat later.” He hung up before she could attempt to get the last word in (a stunt he would no doubt pay dearly for later) and focussed on Robin’s approach.

The thief glanced at Rumple, then down at Zelena and then up at the imp again. He couldn’t seem to decide who needed his attention more and Rumple let loose a low growl and rolled his eyes.

“Good afternoon.” He prompted forcibly.

“Where is my daughter?”

Rumple raised a horned eyebrow at the mortal’s tone and reminded himself that if he wanted to kill the man it would be tooth and claw and this suit…well, the suit was ruined anyway.

Oh dear, running out of excuses not to shred the supposed soulmate to ribbons.

“Inside.” Rumple cocked his head to indicate over the town line. “Regina and Swan have her.”

“Give her back.” Robin glanced at Zelena once more and then glared up at Rumple again. “She is not yours to take.”

“Hmm, because you’ve done such a stellar job of looking after her up until now. What’s the matter, because she’s green she doesn’t deserve your protection like your little _pink_ son?”

“That is NOT true!” Robin snarled. “I knew that Zelena was troubled but I never thought…”

“Never thought what? That she’d take another run at Regina? Use her own child to do so?” Rumple cocked his head, his nose wrinkling in disgust. “Good grief, dearie, I’ve known more about people I’ve killed never mind someone I’ve repeatedly fucked to the point of impregnating them –oh, wait- I know Regina _very_ well.”

Robin’s jaw clenched and he seethed quietly for a moment.

“Did you truly think she had changed? Turned from a petty jealous witch into suiting mother material in the course of nine months? She tricked you into fatherhood to get back at Regina. Do you really think the fruit of your loins means _anything_ to her other than another piece on the board to use against her sister? Are you truly as dumb as you look?”

“Knew- -knew you’d never hurt her.” Zelena rasped, her eyes fluttering open. She looked up at Rumple, her head lolling when she didn’t have the strength to keep it steady.

“You knew nothing of the kind.” Rumple snarled. “You endangered the life of your child and –for what? The chance to ruin Regina’s happiness? Again?”

Zelena opened her mouth as if to speak but only managed to moan. Rumple watched dispassionately though a little surprise swam to the surface when Robin knelt at Zelena’s side, gently lifting her off the cold road to cradle her in his arms.

Rumple arched an eyebrow but said nothing.

“She is _mine_.” Zelena told Rumple before looking at Robin now. “I love her. I do.”

“She is ours.” Robin corrected her gently and looked up at Rumple. “Give her _back_.”

“Oh-ho, what’s this?” Rumple smirked and tilted his head. The tip of his tail twitched back and forth. “Affection between the spider and the fly. I can tell you now that it won’t end well.”

“Still your forked tongue, imp!” Robin growled. “Give me back my child!”

“Uh, arrowhead actually.” Rumple stuck out his purple tongue to prove his point. “And I don’t think so. We at the Formerly Unhinged Competent Killers Union don’t think that you two good parents make. Regina has developed an affection for her niece. I don’t think she _wants_ to give her back into a life of squalor and the constant poking and prodding that her skin will grant her in this drab little world.” Rumple waved around himself to indicate the distinct lack of magic and excess of ignorance in the air itself.

“You have no right to her!” Robin lunged to his feet, bringing Zelena with him so that she was off the cold ground. She groaned and Robin looked at her for a moment before turning his attention back to Rumple when he spoke.

“Villain!” Rumple spread both hands and gave that gleeful laugh that he really should have trademarked by now. “I have the right because I took it. Besides, you’re missing the obvious.”

“That I should have killed you months ago?”

Rumple heaved a hefty sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose between his claws for a moment.

“Oy, heroes.” He muttered to himself and tried again. “You could go. With. Her.”

“I…all three of us?” Robin asked tentatively.

Rumple focussed beyond Robin and the witch and saw Roland sitting very quietly in the passenger seat of the truck. He looked tearful and confused as to the entire drama but Rumple dismissed it as none of his affair.

He had other children that demanded more of his attention.

“Regina cordially extends her invitation.” Rumple dipped in a mocking bow. “’Ware the fine print.”

“What does that mean?” Robin held Zelena closer to his chest when she began to convulsively shiver, shock setting in. He was becoming desperate.

Rumple smirked, desperate was his favourite flavour.

“It means that _she’s_ running out of time,” Rumple nodded to Zelena, “and _you_ will agree to whatever I say in order to get her help. Storybrooke’s hospital IS the only one within fifty miles after all.”

“I’ll not sell my daughter to you.”

“I don’t see why not. She’s not even your firstborn.” Rumple snickered at Robin’s thunderous face.   

“Rumple!”

Rumple twisted with a startled and alarmed hiss when Regina stepped across the barrier.

“Stop playing with your food and make the deal. She’s dying.”

“And I don’t care.” Rumple snarled, irritable that she had crossed the barrier.

“Regina.” All the air left Robin’s lungs and he swallowed hard.

“Robin.” She nodded to him and turned her attention back to the father of her children. “Well?”

“You ruin all my fun.” He grumbled, pacing to put himself between Regina and Robin.

“The price of being domestic.” Regina almost smiled. “Have you gotten to terms yet or have you been busy gloating and making disparaging marks about parenting?”

“I can’t do both?”

“Rumple.”

Rumple turned and gave a little hiss in her direction.

She stomped on his tail.

He turned with a snarl but didn’t dare yank it out from under her foot lest he unbalance her.

“Fine! Fine.” He spun back to Robin. “ _We_ decide what Zelena can and cannot do and YOU stay away from Regina.”

“Rumple…” Regina sighed.

“Those are my terms.” He would not be swayed.

“Yes. Fine.” Robin nodded. “Now, will you help her?”

“Give her here.” Rumple accepted the weight of Zelena easily and Regina rested her hand on his shoulder, using the scroll so they could cross over the town barrier again.

Rumple unceremoniously dumped the one armed witch onto the hood of the Mercedes, accepted the scroll from Regina and crossed the barrier again in order to collect Roland and Robin.

In the time it took them to cross the threshold in Robin’s truck, Regina was already pouring magic into the open smoking wound that was the remnants of Zelena’s arm. She frowned in concentration and Rumple hissed in annoyance when he saw what she was doing.

He threw open the truck door and dropped down onto the ground, thrusting Roland back into the passenger seat after he had been so comfortably sat in his lap and prowled towards Regina and her sister.

“Woman!” He growled.

She _knew_ he didn’t like her doing big spells. Not when the magic in her body would put her children first and cause possibly dangerous deficiencies in the rest of her should she deplete it too far.

“Relax.” Regina straightened up to turn to him. “I’m doing the delicate work, Swan is going to do the heavy lifting.”

Zelena chose that moment to snap her eyes open and rear up off the hood of the car, her remaining hand clutching for Regina’s throat. Apparently, she was feeling much better.

Rumple gave a bellowing roar that would have made a dragon sit back and take notes and threw himself forward, intending to rend Zelena limb from remaining limb.

He needn’t have bothered.

There was a _SNAKT!_ of sound and Emma’s arm swung hard.

The extending nightstick in Emma’s hand clapped into the back of Zelena’s skull and felled her like a log. She collapsed limply against the hood of the Mercedes and slithered off the polished metal to crumple to the ground.

And all of this whilst Emma held a green baby in one arm.

Everyone looked down at Zelena’s unconscious form, turning greener by the second, then back up at Emma.

“What?” The Saviour shrugged. “Regina promised I could bean her on the skull after she’d set fire to her.”

 

**_A Month Later…_ **

 

“LET ME BY!” Rumple roared at Emma but she wasn’t swayed.

“No.” Emma punted him backwards with a little shove of magic. “She said you weren’t to be in there.”

“ _Somebody_ should!” Rumple’s eyes burned like headlamps out of his skull as his attention on the glamour that made him appear human lessened and lessened.

Understandable considering the love of his life was in labour and he was banned from the proceedings.

“If I can’t be there then you should!” Rumple paced back and forth, looking for a gap in Emma’s shielding of the room and cursing Regina’s success in tutoring the Saviour when he found nothing.

“Oh, wow, I do _not_ need to see Regina from that angle. Ever. Never ever.” Emma shook her head vehemently.

“Chillax, Unckie Wumple.” Lily suggested from her vantage point of leaning against the wall behind Emma’s shield. She was the second line of defence. At the very least she could transform and _sit on him_. “Mom’s got it covered.”

“Your mother’s track record with infants is not exactly stellar.” Rumple snapped and Lily, far from exploding at the jibe, rolled her eyes and they landed on Snow and Charming in the waiting room. They looked almost as concerned as Rumple was but were obviously handling it better.

“Yeah, well, meddling enemies numbers one and two are over there so methinks we villains are safe for a time yet.” Lily drawled. She made a point of flashing her eyes gold at them and then turned back to Rumple. “Besides, I think Her Royal Evilness has a point. I don’t think you want to see all of that business going on down in her feminine segments. It’d be like watching your favourite bar burn down.”

“Oh, lovely.” Emma twisted to wrinkle her nose at her sister friend and Lily just smirked.

“ _You’re_ the one that’s supposed to have inheritable charm.”

“It skips a generation.” Emma scowled.

Maybe they’d have kept Rumple out. Maybe Regina would have been allowed to deliver the twins in (relative) peace. Maybe Emma’s shield should have extended a little further than just wall to wall in the corridor.

Either way, it became a moot point when… _something_ magical washed out of the delivery room.

A wash of colours, blue and gold and emanating from the room where Regina laboured to bring her children into the world.

Emma and Lily jumped, Charming and Snow’s eyes widened, Henry lifted his head from studiously playing his Nintendo and NOT FREAKING OUT, Granny dropped a stitch in her knitting and Ruby convulsively flinched, clapping her hands over her ears with discomfort.

Rumple ran to Regina.

Through a wall.

Emma’s eyebrows shot up and her eyes bugged wide when a Dark One shaped hole just appeared in one of the walls next to her shield.

He’d run _through_ the wall, across the room on the other side and crashed through that wall too to slither to a halt in the delivery room. Eyes wide, entire body tense, his tail ‘fluffed up’ with the spines sticking up every which way and generally looking somewhat terrifying in Uber Dark One mode and yet comically adorable with the terrorised expression on his face.

“What did I miss?”

Mal blinked, caught in the act of handing the second baby to Regina and coughed a laugh after a stunned moment.

“Nothing important.” She managed after a moment. “We were just about to call you in.”

The dragon lifted the baby swaddled in a blanket in her arms and smirked.

“Would you like to meet your daughter?”

“Yes.”

Only a cast iron knowledge that she could be bigger than he and eat him in a single bite kept Maleficent from flinching convulsively when Rumple disappeared the distance between them in the blink of an eye. He appeared between Maleficent and Regina, hands held out waiting for his baby to be handed over toot sweet lest he take Mal’s arms with her when he took her.  

Mal, sensing that his patience was at an end, handed over the little baby girl and Rumple scanned her with detail hungry eyes and then turned to Regina.

“She’s beautiful. Just like her mother.”

“Hah.” Regina sagged against the pillows in the bed, holding the first baby carefully against her chest despite her exhaustion.

Twenty hours of labour. He was definitely doing it next time.

  “I still blame you for this.”

“Then I accept full responsibility.” Rumple smiled at her and gently swept  his fingers down over the bridge of his daughter’s nose. He looked up at his second child. “Who’s this?”

“Your son.” Regina managed something of a smile but gratefully accepted when Rumple bent to settle his daughter into her other arm.

Both babies were perfect, he decided, and he’d murder a planet if someone even so much as looked sideways at them or their mother.

“A son and a daughter.” Rumple leaned in and pressed a kiss to Regina’s hair. “Perfect.”

“Oh, good, because it’s too late to exchange them.” Regina huffed an exhausted laugh and Rumple smiled, dipping his head to rest his forehead against hers.

“I wouldn’t for anything in any world.”

“This is sickening. I remember when you two used to bond over murdering people.” Mal heaved a sigh and folded her arms over her chest, realising she wasn’t getting a chance to hold her niece or nephew at any point in the near future. Possessive, didn’t quite cover it with regards to their parents. “Their scales are adorable though.”

Regina hummed a pleased sound. It was true.

Even if they weren’t ‘scales’ per se. Her children had the pattern of scales similar to that of their father, certainly, but not the texture (thank all the gods, she couldn’t have coped with _that_ in utero). It was more like a sheen to their skin that caught the light in a certain way. A shimmering gold under their daughter’s skin to match her father’s and a wonderful blue on their son.

Other than that, they looked entirely human. Well, maybe their ears were a little pointed but Regina thought that was adorable and she would cheerfully eviscerate anyone who said differently.

“Safe to come in?” Emma tentatively poked her head in through the Rumple shaped hole in the wall. “Just me. Lily’s threatening to eat anyone else. Ruby looks delighted at the very thought.”

“MUST you torment my daughter so?” Mal scowled. “She’s just learning courtship.”

“Are you kidding? Now that they’re on hiatus due to grown up responsible-in-the-family-way type things, I have to meddle somewhere.” Emma smirked and picked her way over the rubble to stand at the foot of the bed.

Mal had thankfully taken care of the ick with some judicious application of magic –it had been decided that she should be midwife since Rumple was Not Allowed In and she was able to withstand whatever magic Regina might unleash during labour- so it was safe to stand there she thought.

Mal made a grumbling sound but didn’t dare snort smoke in case Rumple bodily threw her out of the room to protect his spawn’s lungs.

“So, ten fingers, ten toes, prerequisite numbers of horns slash tails and adorability quota filled?” Emma planted her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows. She’d be skinned if she went back without all the pertinent details.

“Ten fingers, ten toes, no horns, no tails, a boy, a girl and both of them weighed ten pounds exactly.” Maleficent supplied when both parents were too busy fawning to care about such trivial things as the rest of the world.

“Ten pounds?” Emma’s brows shot up. “Yowza. Names?”

“I think we’re still gazing with awe.” Mal glanced at Rumple, Regina and accompanying progeny.

She was treated to a half hearted glare from Regina.

“Our son is Roman and our daughter is Brenna.” Regina looked supremely pleased with herself and Emma smirked.

“Congratulations.” Emma nodded. “I’ll pass it around and stave off the ravening hordes who are gagging for cuddles and other overly affectionate displays that may get them bitten.”

She turned and left, knowing that they wanted some time to themselves and –for Regina at least- a nap. Mal was on her heels, telling the couple to only call if they needed her and she would hear.

Which left the little family in a bubble of quiet that they knew wouldn’t last but just made it all the more cherished.

“They really are beautiful.” Rumple sat on the edge of the bed and gently leaned over so he could look down at Roman and Brenna. “Though you did not tell Swan their full names.”

He watched her carefully. He had been dancing around this issue for a while now and Regina had deftly avoided it and alternately stomped on the toes of it –so to speak- depending on her mood. She did not look up at him now but she did seem to absorb his words for a long moment. She finally looked up at him and –even exhausted- managed a beautiful smile for him.

“Roman and Brenna Gold.”

Rumple was carefully still for a long moment, almost frightened to take that in.

“I know the divorce papers finally came through.” Regina admitted quietly. “That was the only reason I would have refused and…I never wanted to reject you. That’s why I never let you ask. Of course I’ll marry you Rumple. Even if you did leave the ring in your jacket.” She smiled and Rumple’s eyes widened.

He patted himself down and then coughed a laugh when he found that she was right. Twenty hours of thinking of nothing but her being without him and in pain had meant that he’d not exactly been paying attention to such trivial things as what he was wearing. Speaking of, what _was_ he wearing?

“Oh, this shirt clashes with everything.” He murmured and she laughed.

“Yes. Yes it does. I shall burn it later.”

“Always looking out for me.” He smirked, combing his claws through her hair. “Even in fashion.”

“You kept your scales.” She tilted her head into his hold. “I thought you were going to hide them.”

“Oh.” Rumple looked at his hand, gold and scaled against her soft olive skin. He smiled a little. “Well, I should be a good example. Teach them scaly…things from the beginning.”

She chuckled, glad that he had accepted that part of himself. That he would not hide it. No more hiding who he was.

“Ow.” She admitted after a moment and pressed her lips together. “I said no to drugs for the labour, can I have them now?”

“Mal taught me a mild sleeping spell.”

 Rumple flicked his tail and magic poured over the bed, broadening it so that they might sit comfortably side by side but still be cosy. He slunk up beside Regina, taking Roman from her and settling Brenna more comfortably so that she nestled between both of her parents. He tucked his tail neatly around them and pressed a kiss to Regina’s forehead.

Magic settled lightly over Regina, lulling her into a healing sleep that would have her fighting fit within a matter of hours, rested and replenished.

He would watch over them until then.

Until then and forever after.

Rumple rolled his eyes at himself.

Gods, this Happy Endings shite really _was_ ridiculously mushy. 

      

**Author's Note:**

> Abrupt?
> 
> I'm not sure. I was going to do an epilogue type bit but I'm sick of looking at this damn thing soo...no. 
> 
> Just enjoy it for what it is. 
> 
> Also, most of Zelena's dialogue was written by Addicted1 because I don't speak witch.


End file.
